scrapping

I was after a quick and effective idea to make a birthday card, so I did lots of hunting around for some inspiration. I really wanted an idea for a nice flat paper flower, but this seems surprisingly hard to find. In the end, I found this great tutorial on how to make fabric hexagonal yo yos, and decided to try it with paper. It worked really well, although I will say a thicker, better quality paper made it so much easier and gave a nice finish. I used two different sized hexagonal flowers to decorate my card – one on top of the other, finished off with a sequin.

I’ve put together a little tutorial on how to make them, and combined with the fabric tutorial, hopefully it should all make sense! As usual, if there are any problems, please let me know and I’ll do my best to help.

Ingredients

Patterned paper (a bit thicker is easier to work with)

Circle template (I used a glass)

Instructions

1. Cut out a circle from paper – any size will do but the smaller the more fiddly it gets (about 8cm across is a good size).

2. Fold in half and then into quarters. 3. Unfold the circle, and mark the centre (this makes the next few folds so much easier). 4. Fold one edge into the centre mark. 5. Fold the left hand corner into the centre. 6. Repeat stage 5 twice more, until it looks like the example below. 7. Fold the left hand corner into the middle to make a point.8. Unfold the point, and put the left hand edge on top of the right hand edge, as shown below.9. After stage 8, you will be left with a little flappy bit.10. This bit is really hard to explain, but you need to flip the flap under the triangle to the left of the last triangle which you made. I had to try this stage out a few times before I got it right, so please let me know if you get stuck. 11. Tuck the flap in, and make sure all your triangle seams line up centrally.

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Just a quick post to show you some super easy instructions I came across on Pinterest on how to make an origami butterfly. I am terrible at following simple instructions, especially for origami, but even I managed this. I made 3 butterflies to decorate a card for a friends birthday and added some pearly antenna. The papers came from another friend, in the amazing bag of goodies which I got in the post a while ago.

I am thinking about making some more and using them for some kind of picture, if I ever get round to making it, you will be the first to know 🙂

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I love getting post, and don’t get near enough these days. When I do get post, it is usually bills. When post is as lovely as this, I go into excitement meltdown! My friend offered to send me some of this lovely fabric, which I’m going to use to make this Scottie dog doorstop.

Along with generous chunk of lovely fabric, she also sent me some sweet origami paper, teabags, buttons and stickers.

I’ve put together a return goodie bag, which I’ll share once I know she has received it in the post. Let me know if you’d like to do a swap too – I just realised how much craft stuff I have lurking around!

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This week I have been making cards – I started by making a card for a friend and then kind of got carried away… It has been very therapeutic though, and has given me the chance to practice my best joined up handwriting which I was taught at school by a very old Irish nun. I never use it in everyday life, way too much hassle, but it looks very old-fashioned and lovely.

I have been raiding my stash and used a luggage label, button and small scrap of butterfly paper to make the card below.

For the card below, I used more buttons, another small scrap of paper and these cutouts from an old atlas which I got from Etsy to use in my Romania scrap book.

All in all, I’ve probably made over 20 cards, I’m not quite sure what to do with them all!

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Last summer I went on a trip to Romania, where I helped run a week long camp from Roma girls. It was an amazing experience – hard work but extremely rewarding. The girls were aged 7 to 16, and came from a very poor background, with some of the girls having very dysfunctional family backgrounds. Through Girl Guiding, myself and 3 other leaders were chosen to lead a group of 8 Rangers and Young Leaders, and between us we set up and ran the camp.

One of my highlights was when Mariana, the supervising adult with the Roma girls, asked if her girls had chosen the colours used to decorate these paper dolls below, which we did at the end of the week. They all chose bright, cheerful colours, including pink hair. Mariana said the girls normally used browns and grey colours, and was so happy they were choosing bright colours as it reflected how happy and relaxed they were by the camp experience.

Anyway, I have finally finished my scrap book today, months after the trip! I haven’t really done any scrapping before, but really got into it. I would do a page or so in an evening after work, as a way to relax and recall good memories from the trip. Here are some of my pages.

As it was a camp based on guiding ideas, lots of games were involved, even though it was over 40 degrees centigrade!

Finally, here is a photo of the fabulous mountains around Brasov – a ski resort area. I kept on feeling like I wanted to break into songs from the best musical of all time The Sound of Music 🙂 I really would like to go back to Romania again, and can recommend it as a great holiday destination, it is one of the most friendly places I have been to.